Both natural polymers and synthetic polymers have been used as base polymers in bottle labeling adhesive applications.
Natural polymer-based adhesives comprising, for example starch and/or casein, can be formulated to offer such advantages as good machinability, high wet strength, and ice water resistance. Synthetic emulsion polymer-based adhesives provide advantages such as, for example, a fast set time. Hot melt adhesives based on styrenic block copolymers are able to produce especially soft, often pressure sensitive adhesives, which are particularly effective in bonding plastic labeling films to plastic bottles.
While prior art adhesives provide numerous advantages, problems still exist in terms of processing, i.e., gluing the label to the bottle, the appearance of the finished label, and/or in the ease of removability of the label during recycling operations. A need therefore continues to exist in the art for adhesive formulations that are useful in bottle labeling applications, gives a good finished appearance and is removable with the label during conventional recycling operations. The current invention addresses this need.